


Chatelaine

by Night-Mare (Aoife)



Series: Cradle 'verse [6]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Addiction, Implied/Referenced Domestic Abuse, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10736868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare
Summary: ForThe Hand That Rocks the Cradle Rules the World:"She loves Iemitsu, but she'd love him better dead."





	Chatelaine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Rules the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607250) by [Night-Mare (Aoife)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare). 



> While this fic touches on the domestic abuse referenced in "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Rules the World" within Nana and Iemitsu's relationship, it does so with a light hand, and from a non-expert PoV. Please forgive me for any glaring errors.

She's angry, so angry with Dino Cavallone when he finally withdraws his Flames from her, under the supervision of Shamal. She _mostly_ \- at least to start with - just wants that comfortable cushion from reality back. Hates Shamal for explaining it to her the way he had, that her husband had her hooked on him and had had her tied up so she couldn't fight free. She hates them and she's angry, but she can also _think_. And her son, her beloved Tsunayoshi is back to how he was before her husband's last visit.

He's bubbly and happy despite having to learn a new language, and he has a friend who is protective and _his_ and a tutor for whom he is flourishing, and that's everything she wanted for her son, but couldn't give him. It makes the process of withdrawal - psychological, not physiological bearable, even if it is _hard_. Seeing Dino Cavallone with Bianchi, and the way he was careful with her, and with her son and his friend, and meeting the other two young Elements he helped protect helped her trust him.

(That conversation, when the Dying Will and Flames and all the convoluted mess surrounding them is complicated and she has to visit and revisit it and discuss it with a range of people. Not as wide a range as she'd like, but she understood why Dino wanted to keep her and her son's presence a secret while she was recovering. Especially once Shamal had explained what Iemitsu had done in terms of an opiate addiction.)

Squalo Superbi, when she first meets him is loud and noisy, and reminds her in some ways of her husband. Except that there are layers and layers to Squalo, and he's _good_ with the children that call the sprawling estate home that she can soon divide them mentally.

(The day he returns though, after an absence of several days during which she realises her son was having _nightmares_ about her husband, she does strike him, fully expecting to be hit back, for being just like Iemitsu and leaving when Tsuna needed him. That he doesn't and she gets to see the effect that adding Takeshi to the classroom with Tsuna has, and watches Shamal having to treat Tsuyoshi for a similar issue with his Flames ... she loves Iemitsu. But she can't live with him.)

She still has bad days; days when she rages, when all she wants is her husband back, where she hits Dino when he startles her in the kitchen and curses out Shamal when he make her talk and hides in the suite she's slowly making her own. They're balanced by the good days, though, and the fact that Dino's job offer was real, that she has his household to run, and his men watch over her son and protect him and appreciate her cooking and tell her tales of Dino's childhood helps enormously; they make him human and no one ever told her those stories about Iemitsu.

All of the boys in the house need mothering to a greater or lesser extent, and she finds that easy to do; even if that mothering has expanded to include the line "and are you appropriately armed," in addition to ensuring that they were fed and clothed.

She flinches the first time she meets Lal Mirch. She's spoken to this woman before, on the phone, when ringing Iemitsu. She's afraid that she will tell Iemitsu where she is and afraid she _won't_. But Lal only blinks and curses, and sends the child with her off to play with Tsuna. She finds herself dragged into Dino's office, where she watches the not-toddler shout at a teen she's been told is a 'Sky' like her husband, and capable of doing the same things - only he doesn't. He listens and apologises and _explains_.

And explains the rest of why he and his are so pissed off with her husband. Of Xanxus and the fact he was frozen for defending the little boy who had been sent to play with Tsuna - of Iemitsu's injury, and his ignoring of things such as the rumours about the Estraneo Familiga, and his failure to protect - or help rein in - Xanxus's brothers. And that there's no way to remove him short of killing him.

That sends her running from the room, to throw up. She loves Iemitsu; she hates him, but can she allow the teen who rescued her from him to _kill_ him? She doesn't know for _sure_ , but helping Shamal with Tsuyoshi, who she knows and thought a friend, and seems to be as damaged as she is settles her. He's a different person with his Flames back; a man who misses his wife dearly and loves his son the way she does.

It makes what Dino is accusing her husband of painfully _real_ to see the same damage done to another; the realisation that Takeshi, sporty little Takeshi - who already excelled at baseball and the sword - could have ended up as clumsy as Tsuna had, if her husband had deemed it 'necessary'. Even the fact that an un-damaged Tsuyoshi might have been able to call in favours from contacts in the Flame Mafia to get his wife _healed_.

She loves Iemitsu, but she'd love him better dead.


End file.
